BASEBALL

BASEBALL; Mining for Riches on the Farm

By TYLER KEPNER

Published: February 5, 2003

This was not his destiny. José Contreras did not know there was gold in his right arm. His father was a tobacco farmer in Pinar del Rio, a town in the Cuban countryside near the western end of the island. The youngest of nine children, Contreras was working with the oxen by the time he was 7, helping his father in the fields.

As an athlete, Contreras loved volleyball; he was tall, a natural star. Basketball was another pastime. He played baseball for fun, unnoticed by the Cuban national team through most of his teens. His position was third base. He was 18 when a coach for the national team saw him firing a ball across the infield from his knees.

''You're a pitcher,'' the coach told Contreras, who immediately disagreed. ''I like hitting,'' he said. But within a few years, Contreras had made the national team as a pitcher, beginning the journey that will take him to Yankee Stadium, where he will be introduced tomorrow as the Yankees' new $32 million man.

With the way the Yankees collect starters, Contreras is not guaranteed a spot in the rotation. But at 31 years old -- an age most people in baseball believe is accurate -- he is an important part of the Yankees' future, and the latest symbol of George Steinbrenner's passion to beat the Boston Red Sox at everything.

The Yankees signed Contreras just after midnight on Dec. 24. They reached the deal in a three-hour meeting in the bungalow of Contreras's agent, Jaime Torres, at the Hotel Campo Real in Managua, Nicaragua. Officials from the Red Sox, including General Manager Theo Epstein, were sitting anxiously at a restaurant 40 feet away, watching the door.

''We knew the Red Sox were very, very interested,'' said Gordon Blakeley, the Yankees' senior vice president for baseball operations, who signed Contreras with their Latin American scouting coordinator, Carlos Rios. ''I knew their general manager had flown in. You don't fly in unless you're really, really intent on doing something. That obviously put pressure on us.''

The Yankees' four-year offer was the winning bid, bringing Contreras riches unimaginable in Cuba. He was one of the highest-paid players, making about 600 pesos a month, or roughly $50. He lived with his wife and two daughters in a motel room near the ballpark in Pinar del Rio.

Contreras was accomplished. He had a 117-50 record and a 2.82 earned run average over 10 seasons, and his 1.76 E.R.A. led the Cuban league last year. In an exhibition game against the Baltimore Orioles in 1999, Contreras struck out 10 in eight shutout innings.

Orlando Hernández, the Yankees' last successful Cuban defector, used a deceptive delivery and a variety of arm angles. Contreras is pure power: a 6-foot-4, 240-pound right-hander with a fastball in the mid- to high 90's and a slider, a sinker and a devastating forkball.

''This guy can pitch,'' said the Cleveland Indians' international scouting director, Rene Gayo, who signed the last prominent Cuban free agent, pitcher Danys Baez, in 1999. ''In my opinion, he's a lot like John Smoltz or Curt Schilling. He's got a forkball that's just nasty.''

Pat Gillick, the Seattle general manager, thought enough of Contreras to override the Mariners' philosophy against giving contracts of longer than three years. In Nicaragua, Gillick offered $24 million for four years. ''This guy's special,'' Gillick said.

Contreras had traveled with the national team for years, never giving the government reason to suspect he might defect. When agents approached Contreras at international events, he mostly ignored them.

''Guys who work for me said he's very friendly, but he brushed off any suggestion of playing in the States,'' said Joe Kehoskie, who has represented 12 Cuban defectors. ''He had been the poster boy for Castro's sports for some time. After the Orioles game, he was the man in Cuba.''

The government went to great lengths to control Contreras's image, giving him a 2001 Peugeot and insisting that he conduct all interviews at the ballpark, never at the motel where he lived.

The idea was to give a false impression of Contreras as a member of the elite. Nobody listened to his repeated requests for new living arrangements. ''He just got frustrated, tired of it, sick of it,'' Gillick said.

On Oct. 1, Contreras walked out of the Hotel Camino Real in Santillo, Mexico, where he had been playing in a tournament with the national team. Torres, the agent, had told Contreras to contact him if he ever wanted to defect, and this time, Contreras did. He got into a car Torres sent and left for the Monterrey airport.

He was out. Contreras and Torres flew to Tijuana and crossed the California border. They soon flew to Boca Raton, Fla., where Contreras met with Gillick. He also met with John Henry, Boston's principal owner, and Luis Tiant, the former Red Sox star and a Cuban legend.

But for Contreras to negotiate as a free agent, he had to establish residency in a foreign country. Major League Baseball rejected his claim of residency in Mexico, but he was soon granted residency by Nicaragua, and that was acceptable.

The Yankees were elated. Blakeley had coveted Contreras since the mid-1990's, when he saw him dominate the Italian national team.